Build tools discussion

[Thorsten Schöning <ts...@am-soft.de>]

Guten Tag Wiebesiek, Torsten,
am Freitag, 8. Januar 2016 um 13:28 schrieben Sie:

> log4cxx need one well documented cross platform build process.

From my experience such a thing doesn't exist. I can't remember ANY of
my used OSS projects using ANY build tool promising cross platform
support without build problems mentioned on their mailing list. Just
look at log4cxx itself, many build tools, free choice, none if it
works reliably cross platform.

Do you remember of any lib which totally fit into your environment and
didn't need any adaption for any reason? I don't.

> What do you think about changing to cmake? That should work on Linux,
> Windows and Mac OS.

CMAKE is https://xkcd.com/927/. ;-) CMAKE was mentioned in the past,
but would need a complete rewrite, while autoconf is at least partly
available already.  What do existing autoconf users say, would CMAKE
make life really easier for you? It wouldn't for me...

> What do you need these custom projects for? Testing within VS?

Im working with Embarcadero C++-Builder, former Borland, good luck to
find any support for it all. :-) CMAKE produces some old make files
for Borland 5 and 6, current versions of my IDE use MSBuild instead,
like Visual Studio, and can't even import old make files anymore.
Directly using the newer compiler and linker is out of question as
well, simply doesn't work because command line args changed, dir
layouts changed etc. That's why cpptasks doesn't work anymore as well.

During development I generally prefer a tight integration with my IDE,
because it knows things like preferred dir layouts, already has its
own standards, knows about my source code, makes life easier during
debugging and is used for ALL of my projects, independently of the use
of any OSS lib. And it's not only about Embarcadero, which may be an
irrelevant niche, but I do use Eclipse as well and e.g. Maven is able
to create Eclipse projects, but even that simply didn't work too well
for the needs I had in my projects.

So from my opinion, I prefer a good documentation over existing make
files most of the time, because it makes it easier to integrate things
in what I already have. In fact, I use most make files only as
documentation, because projects often just say: "Use our make files
and tools", regardless of if I'm able to do so. :-)

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Thorsten Schöning

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